tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72712780779135517822018-03-19T07:44:11.081+00:00Ferdi McDermott's MiscellanyFerdi McDermott: A Catholic teacher's ramblingsFerdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.comBlogger221125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-75591289240225269902017-12-12T21:42:00.001+00:002017-12-12T21:43:39.576+00:00In the spirit of my old friend, Joseph Pearce, I am trying to shed new light on a lady poet from 100 years ago<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://olivecustance.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/21ca01e5ccd7401c5a9d5273d106a29c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="526" height="320" src="https://olivecustance.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/21ca01e5ccd7401c5a9d5273d106a29c.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>Under my pen-name, Edwin King, I am trying to shed new light on the work of Olive Custance, the wife of Lord Alfred Douglas. For more information, visit my special website <a href="http://www.olivecustance.org/">www.olivecustance.org</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-22801180501173767852017-12-04T08:59:00.004+00:002017-12-04T09:00:41.059+00:00Government-bashing ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/11/02/20/1-teresa-may-get.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/11/02/20/1-teresa-may-get.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I feel a bit sorry for Mrs May. Here's why:<br /><br />Government borrowing is going down (ie. although the UK is still getting deeper into debt, the process has slowed).<br /><br />Unemployment levels in the UK look set to reach a 44-year low.<br /><br />500,000 people have come out of poverty since 2010.<br /><br />Net immigration is falling (although people are still pouring in, they're pouring in more slowly).<br /><ul></ul><br /><i>All of these facts correspond to old promises made by the government.</i><br /><i><br /></i>So instead of congratulating the government, the left-wing press finds other things to gripe about : Rises in "relative poverty" or complaints about the wage levels of all the new jobs that are being created, or longer waiting lists for psychological services in the NHS (the example quoted by Radio 4 the other day was the long waiting lists for gender reassignment counselling ...).<br /><br />Of course these gripes are certainly areas that highlight hardships for certain groups. But it does not help the cause of democracy to keep moving the goalposts.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-81075928712030835572017-12-01T22:51:00.002+00:002017-12-02T00:01:52.439+00:00Boys are the future, for good or ill, and whether we like it or not ...<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Prince_George_(Cut).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="490" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Prince_George_(Cut).jpg" width="160" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poor little Prince George: a symbol of our future.</td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-c1ef3edf-144b-6802-fb54-591225667a2e" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today's upsetting news that a senior Scottish Episcopalian cleric is busy casting horrible spells on poor little prince George at least proves one thing: the way children turn out is the key to all our futures. And the boys of today will define what tomorrow's world is like, as boys of every generation have done for thousands of years. Whether we like it or not, boys are the key to our future.</span></div><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Can anyone think of any civilisation, country or century which could disprove that assertion? No .... ?QED.</span><br /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And yet, the education of football-loving boys has become a political football which has been so kicked around that it risks falling apart.</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin one day tells his furry friend that he no longer wants to be called “a boy”. Hobbes thinks for a moment, and then replies: “Isn’t that what you are?”</span></div><br id="docs-internal-guid-c1ef3edf-144a-4da2-7471-990384dd8095" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Questions of gender and of gender identity are at the forefront of debates in modern education, but mostly the debate is not about how a reflection on the nature of gender can inform and improve the education we give our children. Rather, the argument is all about rights, rarely about such issues as developmental psychology, parenting, socialisation, educational philosophy or any other field related to the science of pedagogy. Society has spent a century addressing the just grievances of the fairer sex, and now the educational establishment, dominated by the progressive left, is obsessed with changing our whole approach to gender in education in order to address the grievances of those whose grasp of it is so compromised that they cannot decide which gender to be.</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Flying completely in the face of nearly two centuries of developmental psychology and also of traditional wisdom, the argument about rights risks destroying much that is valuable and wise in our educational tradition. And just like the contributions to the educational debate which came out of revolutionary France, militaristic Prussia, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and Communist China, it is all about ideology and sadly disconnected from the real business of being a human being; yet another example of how the State is the worst possible educator of children. (It is a sobering fact that the key decision makers in education in Europe have no children - Mrs May, Mr Macron, Mrs Merkel, Mr Juncker … - and the President of the United States behaves like a boy.)</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As many countries strive, rather pathetically and much too late, to rebuild their sense of rootedness after the Cultural Revolution in China and elsewhere (in which left-wing theorists, especially in education, sought to halt the transmission of cultural traditions - seen as bourgeois - in order to create a new ideal culture for the ideal man), the same kind of ideological approach has found a new way to deracinate and thereby manipulate all those who fall under its spell. &nbsp;Somehow, we are now </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">voluntarily</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> giving up our culture, our history, our gender ... in short, our very humanity. And - I repeat - we're queueing up to do it. It is no surprise for readers of prophetic dystopian fiction (Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, etc.) that the total deracination of a future generation is becoming a realistic possibility at exactly the same time as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">artificial intelligence</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is set to play an increasingly part in our lives. Only the other day, I heard an educator say “What is the point of teaching children things they can just summon up on Google? Education is about more than that.” Well, Google, and Alexa, et al, know the Bible better than I do … does that mean I should never read it?</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I can remember reading </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fahrenheit 451</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> as a boy. It was one of the first in a long line of books and films about a future in which a copy of the Bible becomes a symbol for everything we have lost and are now forbidden to think about. People in that dystopia have forgotten their history and have, as in <i>1984</i>, learnt to accept and follow Big Brother without question. Films are still being made about that kind of dystopia, but the odd thing is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">we have already arrived in it.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> &nbsp;The notion of education as being mainly about transmitting the stories of our people, as it was in every ancient tribe and culture we might know about if we knew our history, is now a dead notion. Education has slipped its moorings and is now all about whatever the zeitgeist says it is. And the thinkers who make up the policy have so little culture and that they will now say that education is about “teaching children, not subjects.” How many children today have read any of the Bible? How many have been given a Bible? (I was given more than one when I was a schoolboy) How many know anything of significance from Shakespeare or Homer or even Dickens, or even A. A. Milne? How many can recite poems or sing in tune and from memory? Ask a randomly selected child in a UK secondary school and the answer is probably negative on most or all fronts. &nbsp;And those who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">know about all “that stuff” have increasingly to keep their heads down.</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When one speaks of an old person who is unsure of his name, where he comes from, why he is where he is, has difficulty communicating, seems to repeat himself, we call it dementia. But now, we are creating young people like this. They are so confused about where they come from, who they are and what their purpose is in life, that they feel like little Calvin in the cartoon. And not many adults would feel safe giving them the common-sense answer that Hobbes gave his friend; about gender identity, or about anything else. Common-sense answers are in short supply. Instead, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Gender Fairy,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> a book which teaches that being a “boy” or a “girl” can be a matter of personal decision, was recently released and is being promoted with State funds in Australia as part of a "Safe Schools" initiative. &nbsp;It ends with the claim: “Only you know whether you are a girl or a boy.”</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Teachers used to be the high priests of common sense. Their wide erudition coupled with their extensive first-hand experience of human nature gave them wisdom. And they handed it on, as in every culture worthy of the name, to the next generation. The job of a teacher is, in fact, to help a child to learn about himself and the world, and to show him what to do in order to become the person he is destined to be, something which is written into our genes and our chromosomes as well as in our hearts and minds. &nbsp;Animals do it without any need for educational theory; which is why - despite our addiction to animal rights - there are not yet any sex change operations for cats and dogs. But human children are born completely helpless and clueless; sorry, Mr Rousseau (in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Emile ou l'Education</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) … they just need to be taught. They often need to be told, in words like those spoken by a kindly farmer to the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton when he fell of his horse and didn't want to get back on it, &nbsp;“not to be a bloody fool” (in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On Hunting</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">).</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My contention is that schools can save our culture from falling off the edge of the cliff into the dystopian abyss. But to do this we need to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">start with the education of boys</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. And instead of looking only into the dimly discernible future for magical solutions to all our educational problems, we need to look backwards where we can look at facts instead of at utopian speculation. The education of boys was the cornerstone of every great civilisation of the past. And the destruction of this key building block of our society is at the root of much of what is wrong with the world. And getting it right - not just an unthinking return to the past, but an earnest effort </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">to educate boys for manhood</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> as the cultured and wise fathers and leaders of the future - &nbsp;could be the key to putting our world to rights, and eliminating its mass dementia, before it is too late. It's time to tell all these people to stop being bloody fools. Just stop. That's all.</span></div><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><b></b><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-30503102935297485132017-10-05T19:19:00.000+01:002017-10-05T19:19:05.479+01:00On TV Vendée, talking about life, school, plans for the future ....<br /><br /><a href="http://tvvendee.com/sans-detour/ferdi-mac-dermott_05102017" target="_blank">http://tvvendee.com/sans-detour/ferdi-mac-dermott_05102017</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-19484762746235157912017-06-12T08:46:00.000+01:002017-06-12T08:46:14.421+01:00Macron and the peopleAfter the presidential election, a lot of people here in France said the right is dead. Now, with the parliamentary elections, they are saying the left is dead. The real danger, as some speakers have been observing tonight, is that if Macron gets 85% of the seats in the Assemblé nationale, perhaps democracy will be dead too ... France needs a result like the UK; one that gets people talking to each other, and LISTENING to each other.<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-26002251450618110382017-06-12T08:43:00.002+01:002017-06-12T08:43:34.994+01:00Working for the bankWhen the left borrows more money to distribute to its supporters through more generous public services and welfare, it ensures that future generations of workers will be ever more profoundly enslaved by the banks. Because they will be working for the banks in the same way that anyone who borrows money becomes a debt slave .... And the odd thing is that the working classes (whether or not they are in work) often end up paying a lot of tax, because they pay VAT.&nbsp; Not an easy problem to solve ....but the reflex of the right towards debt reduction is not a bad thing; in the end it makes everyone freer, and can lead to lower taxes and more disposable income, for everyone. One just needs to be sensitive about how one does it.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-2392400728184930802016-11-10T14:12:00.000+00:002016-11-10T14:12:21.974+00:00Liberal Democracy still lives<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_58247ff68b6434913678916">How is it that my Liberal friends (yes, I have plenty) tell me that those who voted for Trump or for Brexit can't think for themselves, that they have been brainwashed, etc? Just because many are without university degrees, it is imagined that they are also without a brain. I have been listening to hardworking Texan truckers on a talk radio station from Fort Worth to get the feeling of ordinary Americans first-hand. On the whole, they are very impressive, God-fearing, thought<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show">ful and caring. They are under no illusions as to Trump's strong and weak points, and approached their democratic duty seriously and prudently. Even NSBC revealed yesterday that 70% of those who voted Trump did so mainly for reasons relating to the Constitution and the Supreme Court (themes relating to abortion and political corruption predominate). These people are well-informed and have thought about their choices.</span><br /><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span><div class="text_exposed_show"> The truth is that those who voted for Trump or for Brexit, unlike many of those who did not, have listened to and studied a wide variety of opinions and advice. They decided not to follow the omnipresent harranging advice of the mainstream media. They made up their on minds rather than being sheep, blithely led to the slaughter.<br /><br /> We all follow the same mainstream news; we all hear what the soulless progressive media has to say, day in, day out. But not all of us believe it.<br /> Hurray for the honest working men who stood up to the "pensée unique" and decided it was time to think for themselves. It seems that freedom of thought is no longer the unique preserve of those who have enjoyed a liberal education. Democracy is still alive and kicking.<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-18730932152321239862016-09-30T11:16:00.001+01:002016-09-30T11:16:51.139+01:00A new school on the French Riviera<span id="goog_1111224470"></span><span id="goog_1111224471"></span>Have been busy, hence no posts for some time. But here is an update of particular interest to friends further south.<br /><br />I have been working, at the invitation of Bishop Dominic Rey of Fréjus Toulon, on a project at La Londe les Maures at Bormes les Mimosas on the French Riviera.<br /><br />The idea is to open a new <a href="https://rivieracollege.org/" target="_blank">Catholic boys boarding school,</a> with teaching through English and weekly boarding. The school would serve the needs of internationally minded families on the French Riviera who are seeking an education rooted in Christian faith and values for their sons.<br /><br />This new Catholic school would feature daily Mass, celebrated by priests of the <a href="http://www.fsjc.info/history.html" target="_blank">Fraternity of St Joseph the Guardian</a>, plus a range of fun activities (scuba diving, tennis, swimming, football, judo) to supplement the classes in traditional school subjects, leading to GCSE.<br /><br />The new school is called <a href="https://rivieracollege.org/" target="_blank">Riviera College </a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-60864446262555767702015-11-22T09:30:00.001+00:002015-11-22T09:31:22.076+00:00Education for tomorrow; last day<div id="fb-root"></div><script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script><br /><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/chavagnes/posts/921205737934485" data-width="500"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><blockquote cite="https://www.facebook.com/chavagnes/posts/921205737934485">From Mr McDermott, in Rome this week:At the final session today of the World Catholic education congress...<br />Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chavagnes/">Chavagnes International College</a> on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/chavagnes/posts/921205737934485">Saturday, November 21, 2015</a></blockquote></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-5513620415826713402015-10-29T13:18:00.000+00:002015-10-29T13:18:14.820+00:00Two news events that US and UK Catholics haven't noticedJust briefly, I want to draw the attention of concerned Catholics to two international news events whose timing (last Sunday and Monday, right at the end of the Rome Synod on the Family) is especially poignant.<br /><br />First, after years of dispute the Italian Council of State decided on Monday to quash court decisions that had allowed left-wing mayors in Italy to keep public registers of so-called "gay marriages". The Council of State, fresh from reading the final Relatio of the Synod, no doubt, announced on Monday that gay marriages are against human rights because they do not take into account the need to treat different groups equally but differently, hence marriage is for men and women but not for homosexuals.<br /><br />Tuesday's <i>Corriere della Serra</i> seemed relieved and approving about this. They mentioned that 13 countries in the EU have either gay marriage or civil unions, and 9 (including Italy) have no special provision at all. So that, now, is the definitive position of Italy, because the Council of State is the final court of appeal. And in parliamentary politics, the issue is long dead, especially now that the Italians have interpreted the Pope as saying "divoziati si, ommosessuali no!"<i> (Even if that is not exactly what was said at the Synod, but still ...)</i><br /><br />Second, in Poland, on Sunday the traditionalist and Eurosceptic Justice and Law Party (PiS) was elected to government with a programme of repealing the law that made IVF legal, probably abolishing abortion completely, and generally reinforcing traditional Catholic and pro-life values. The line taken by the Synod, and by the Polish bishops especially, will give that political programme real wheels.<br /><br /><span id="articleText"></span><br />"In Poland, there is no value system that could realistically compete ... with the teachings of the church," PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said just days before the election in a TV interview.<br /><br /><span id="midArticle_4"></span>"If someone fights this system, then regardless of whether they are a believer or not, they favour nihilism," said Kaczynski, twin brother of Poland's late president Lech Walesa and devout Catholic.<br /><br />The Sunday election result coincided with the Polish bishops' statement (following on from the Synod) that in Poland, at least, there will be no change to Catholic pastoral discipline with regard to the sacraments.<br /><br />Interestingly, across the border in Poland's historic enemy, Russia, the Russian orthodox church has started to wake up to the problem of abortion, and its bishops are starting to condemn it more and more. And if there is one country where gay marriage will not happen in any of our lifetime's, it is certainly Russia. Poland had long seen its history as a constant struggle between Rome and Byzantium, but remember that it was a Polish pope who first coined the expression about Europe needing to breathe from both its lungs: East and West.<br /><br />With Putin now positioning himself as a defender of Christians against Islamic oppression, with a massive new tide of anti-abortion sentiment in the US, with these interesting developments in Poland and Italy, and the recent Rome Synod's stance against abortion, gay marriage and the gender theory, the whole geo-political scene is now acquiring a new moral, cultural and even spiritual dimension. In 2004 when the future Benedict XVI talked about the dictatorship of relativism and the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism, he was something of a lone voice. Now, a decade later, millions of people around the world are beginning to agree with him. As Lech Walesa's brother has it, those who don't agree,<span id="articleText"> "regardless of whether they are a believer or not, favour nihilism". And nihilism, I can promise you, is going nowhere.</span><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-69230689238941255482015-10-27T11:57:00.001+00:002015-10-27T21:03:13.647+00:00The Pope is inhumanely busyI have been visiting various people in the Roman curia recently. They seem to have an interesting working week. They start quite early, but finish about 1pm for lunch, then pop in to pick up their coats around 4 or 5, before going home at about 6. The only afternoon they work is a Tuesday.<br /><br />But there is one man who doesn't follow this Roman rhythm, and that is the Holy Father.<br /><br />After the exhausting synod, which only finished on Sunday, the Pope had already managed by yesterday night to have held Masses and meetings with the Syrian Chaldeans (to whom he gave support in their time of trial), a conference of Army Chaplains (whom he reminded about the need for peace) and an enormous multitude of thousands of gypsies/travelers, many of them Irish.<br /><br />I bought today's <i>Avvenire </i>to see what he said to them, and it is very interesting. He told them that of course society needed to fight prejudice against them. But he also said: <i>enough is enough! There have been too many tragedies with your children </i>(mainly to do with violence). <i>Do not stop you children going to school! </i>And also : <i>you are the masters of your present and of your future. Do not give cause to society to think ill of you! </i>He then spoke of the recent rise in vocations from the Romany community, including nuns, priests and one bishop. It was paternal, it was very much in touch with reality, and it was full of love.<br /><br />The travelers loved it, although I guess the Irish didn't understand a word of it. I saw one traveler girl, her beautiful body trussed up in a tight, bright purple t-shirt and even tighter bright purple ski pants. She had masses of hair which had never been cut, her face dominated by very amateur eye-brow thinning and a what can only be described as a make-up massacre. We were in St Peter's a few days ago and she was coming out of confession, a tear in her eye and en enormous smile on her clumsy face. A day in a beauty parlour would have turned into another Sophia Loren. But I guess it will never happen. I met her again later, having dinner with four older ladies. They all ordered pizza, with lots of extra chips, and plenty of <i>Fanta</i>. The poor girl is not going to keep her figure.<br /><br />Yesterday, I was strolling along near the Vatican and saw a man holding out a plate of small samples of pizza. Two enormous traveler ladies, just out from the Papal audience, were helping themselves to the whole plate of free samples, with the waiter powerless to stop them. They were Irish. A couple of men, also Irish travelers, sitting on the terrazzo at the same café, shouted out to them several times: "Oi! It's the ones like you that gives us a bad name!" These men, judging from their sharp appearance and the way they were studying the menu, must have been able to read the helpfully provided English translation of the Holy Father's advice at the audience ... but most of them can't in fact read (hence the insistence that they should not stop their children going to school.)<br /><br />I remember years ago helping our priest teach traveler children for their First Communion. The day before the big day he asked them "who's that now, up on the Cross?". "Is it Joseph, Father?" the sparkiest little boy asked. There was at the same time a beautiful girl being confirmed, aged 18, prior to her wedding day. She could not read a word. Apart from a dogged attachment to her faith she did not seem to be able to enunciate many of its doctrines, and yet she was probably fairly unusual in this day and age in one other respect too: she was a virgin on her wedding day and she will never divorce her husband, whatever happens.<br /><br />I served a funeral Mass for an Irish Gypsy King once. He lay there, stinking with untreated cancer of the intestine, in an open coffin, a blue silk gown on him and a crown, made of twisted corn. His wife, whom he had beaten many times, who had tried to hang herself on several occasions, and none of whose seven or eight children could read, stood by the coffin. When we tried to put the lid on, she screamed and wailed "My king, my king, my king!!" Nobody except the parish priest and I sang the hymns. A tape-recording of Johnny Cash accompanied the offertory collection, in which many large notes were thrown in the basket. Most did not come to communion. But at the sermon, the special Gypsy chaplain used the occasion (as the Directory for Funerals says you should) to encourage the people to come back to regular Sunday Mass.<br /><br />Outside, after the Mass, there was a racehorse present (his Late Gypsy Majesty had owned half of it), lots of flowers and a couple of police vans. More ritual wailing ensued, and the police took a couple of lads, in beautiful black suits and ties, back into custody. The were serving life sentences for killing their relations.<br /><br />I remember that a couple of months before he died the Gypsy King came to Church on Good Friday, with a whole entourage, all desperate to stock up on trinkets from the piety stand. The king knelt for a good half an hour before the Crucifix, after the service, praying alone. The lady who wanted to lock the church was starting to get rather cross. But the king of the Gypsies obviously had his priorities straight: he knew that he only had a short time left before he would meet his Maker.<br /><br />A couple of lessons, from all this, perhaps:<br /><br />Yes, there should be no unjust discrimination. But equally, any groups who are victims of discrimination should strive not to exacerbate their plight by becoming parodies of the stereotype. Not just gypsies, but also the new wave of immigrants. (And also, homosexuals ... does the Church really have to doctor its language so as not to upset the poor, sensitive luvvies? Come on guys, just man up!)<br /><br />The other lesson is that the Pope is a busy and well-meaning leader. But he can sometimes get angry, and -dare i say it? - even nasty (he was never so nasty as when he witheringly accused some of his brother bishops of lack of charity the other day ..) but it is just his way; and then he hasn't the time to stop and think about the irony or oddness of some of his sayings. (Although he makes sure to do so when he is teaching solemnly, thank God). At least he cares enough to <i>get </i>angry. Beyond all this, he is just trying his best to reform everyone and everything, and that can be an exasperating role; even if it can make for an exasperating relationship all round. In a sense, I think he is trying to make up for some of the sins of omission and commission of his own youth, and he has said so himself. So perhaps he over-compensates.<br /><br />But the man is like a machine. Everyone else in the Curia was taking a breather on Sunday and Monday after the exhausting Synod, but not the Holy Father. He had Chaldeans to console, army chaplains to turn into peace-makers, gypsies to encourage and berate. He needs our prayers, and our love ... I think that he is often frustrated with us, and we with him. It's just that we are not used to seeing that kind of leadership style. I think, in my leadership style as a Headmaster I am similarly frustrated and frustrating.&nbsp; We just have to bear with each other, that's all. <br /><br />The Italian papers today seem to signal that it is time to move on ... perhaps they jumped the gun on announcing big changes yesterday, and they admit it. They are now saying that we need to wait for the Pope to digest it all and come up with an apostolic exhortation about the Family, or something similar. And they are starting to read the whole of the Synod document and realizing that there is a lot there that will make a positive contribution to the Church's mission to families in the years to come.<br /><br />So let's all just slow down, pray for the Pope, and remember that we all (absolutely no exceptions, even Popes and Cardinals, even bloggers) need to stay charitable and prayerful; because unlike the King of the Gypsies, we don't know when our hour will come. It could be tomorrow. So be ready.<br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-91608943731204634112015-10-24T20:15:00.001+01:002015-10-24T20:18:47.849+01:00The Synod's Final Word<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://press.vatican.va/etc/designs/salastampa/library/images/logo-vatican.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://press.vatican.va/etc/designs/salastampa/library/images/logo-vatican.png" /></a></div>Just been reading the FINAL document from the Synod on the Family (out this evening), and it seems to be rather interesting and sensible. No revolution on doctrine, just being aware of changing priorities. On the doctrinal front, the teaching of Paul VI and John Paul II is amply referred to. The indissolubility of marriage is mentioned, with quotes from scripture. On homosexuality, the Synod quotes Benedict XVI and especially warns that individual local churches should not give in to government press<span class="text_exposed_show">ure to accept the notion of 'marriage' for those of the same sex. They also underline the scandal of international aid being linked to the adoption of such laws in African countries. It is in Italian and will probably not be translated: <a href="http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2015/10/24/0816/01825.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://press.vatican.va/…/pubbli…/2015/10/24/0816/01825.html</a></span><br /><div class="text_exposed_show">There is some (perhaps deliberate) obfuscation in the paragraphs about pastoral care of the divorced and remarried ... but the idea of somehow devolving key areas of doctrinal and moral teaching to bishops' conferences has been avoided.<br />On the other hand there is some serious thought given to preparing couples for marriage and also giving them proper instruction in Catholic teaching. There is also a condemnation of the killing of embryos in IVF treatment, and the general reiteration of respect for life from conception to natural death.<br />There is also a general feeling that children and families are what the Church is all about. That is good. There is a prayer to the Holy Family at the end.<br />That's my take on it. Could be a good thing. Too early to say.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-2269706105713360542015-10-24T19:29:00.002+01:002015-10-24T19:34:43.565+01:00Saturday in Rome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Baths_of_Diocletian_-_Paulin_1880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Baths_of_Diocletian_-_Paulin_1880.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>My bedroom window (in a cheap little hotel near the main station) overlooks the Baths of Diocletian, the largest bath complex ever built, ranging over 32 acres. Apparently it was restored in the beginning of the 6th century under the pontificate of Pope Symmachus and the reign of King Theoderic. <br />Pope Symmachus was the last pagan convert to become Pope. <br /><br />So I went and had a look. It was a Charterhouse full of monks for a few generations. Part of it is now a beautiful, light and airy basilica, designed about 400 years ago. Lots of Roman tombstones, milestones, columns and headless statues from around the city. And an art exhibition of Henry Moore which I wasn't prepared to pay 13 euros for.<br /><br />Then I strolled up to the Victor Emmanuel monument (the 'wedding cake') and decided to climb all the steps. There is a 'sacrum' as in the ancient legion camps in the Roman army. It houses all the tattered flags of the various regiments of the Italian armed forces in reverential glass cases. Of course, except for a few from the days of the Kingdom of Italy (the House of Savoy), they are all the same: red, white and green. About 300 of them ... not especially interesting.<br /><br />There is also a tomb of the 'unknown soldier' from World War One. Although the whole monument is rather pagan, the tomb of the warrior is surrounded by images of soldier saints (Sebastian and George) and there is a consecrated marble altar for Masses to be said for his soul. It as all installed by the King in 1921.<br /><br />One might be forgiven for noticing that on the same hill there is the Basilica of Maria Arca Coeli, which is mainly famous for its ancient Bambino which is held up for veneration every 25th of the month. I popped in and lit a candle. There is some very fine renaissance art there. It seemed somehow more homely and prayerful than some of the other more crowed Roman basilicas.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d1p6EWoaVm0/VivNS4L4ERI/AAAAAAAAXvw/Inzed1PKWcM/s1600/capitoline.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d1p6EWoaVm0/VivNS4L4ERI/AAAAAAAAXvw/Inzed1PKWcM/s320/capitoline.jpg" width="320" /></a>One has to go down the steps and up again to get to the Capitoline, also called the Campidoglio. Either side of the steps are the gigantic and nonchalantly naked Castor and Pollux, each with horse. The Statues were restored by the renaissance popes, who also had Michaelangelo design a beautiful square at the top of the hill; the buildings now house a museum, filled with roman statuary.<br /><br />Most impressive of all is the equestrian stature of Marcus Aurelius, unique, because most bronze works were melted down for the metal.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/0_Marcus_Aurelius_-_Piazza_del_Campidoglio_(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="338" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/0_Marcus_Aurelius_-_Piazza_del_Campidoglio_(2).JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Then behind is the Forum; still very impressive. I'd visited before, so I skipped that. Instead I found another column, just like Trajan's but with St Paul on top instead of St Peter.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Column_of_Marcus_Aurelius_-_detail3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Column_of_Marcus_Aurelius_-_detail3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />The inscriptions said that Pope Sixtus V who restored this other column, originally erected by Marcus Aurelius, had first removed any signs of impiety from it. But I think that was just to reassure the faithful that they could venerate it as a monument to St Paul without any qualms about sacrilege; he didn't remove much if anything.&nbsp; He also points out that before he found it the column was in a sadly deteriorated state. The main theme of the column is the Romans crushing the barbarians (mainly the Germans). In another inscription Pope Sixtus reflects that St Paul's preaching of the Crucified Christ conquered not just the barbarians, but also the Romans themselves.<br /><br />Ended the day with evening Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, with beautiful Marian devotions before and after, in the cosy Salesian style.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-84162054705000276892015-10-23T19:55:00.002+01:002015-10-23T19:55:23.002+01:00Much ado about nothing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JSFxo1ffqNs/Vh5GPmnR-4I/AAAAAAAAXkQ/1URkNn1D6Ps/s1600/DSC_6813-ANIMATION.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JSFxo1ffqNs/Vh5GPmnR-4I/AAAAAAAAXkQ/1URkNn1D6Ps/s320/DSC_6813-ANIMATION.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br />This animation from a Chavagnes outdoor production of <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i> seemed strangely appropriate to this week's ecclesiastical events ...<div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-14159671803184427072015-10-23T15:41:00.001+01:002015-10-23T15:44:28.242+01:00If you are looking for miracles, and other funny things in Rome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Roma-sanlorenzoindamaso2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Roma-sanlorenzoindamaso2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Popped into San Lorenzo in Damaso today (on the Corso Vittorio), thinking there was a Mass on. I had got the time wrong so went out again; but as I was leaving, I spotted two intriguing angels above the door with an invitation not to be missed: <i>Si quaeris miracula</i> ... "if you are looking for miracles". So I went back inside and asked for several.<br /><br />There is, it seems, a 13th century prayer to St Anthony, especially enjoined for those trying to find something lost.<br /><br />in Latin, it runs: <br /><br /><i>Si quaeris miracula/Mors, error calamitas/Daemon, lepra fugiunt/Aegri surgunt sani.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />Here is an English translation:&nbsp; <br /><br /><br />If, then, thou seekest miracles,<br />Death, error, all calamities,<br />The leprosy and demons flee,<br />The sick, by him made whole, arise.<br /><br />The sea withdraws and fetters break,<br />And withered limbs he doth restore,<br />While treasures lost are found again,<br />When young or old his help implore.<br /><br />All dangers vanish from our path,<br />Our direst needs do quickly flee:<br />Let those who know repeat the theme:<br />Let Paduans praise St. Anthony.<br /><br />The sea withdraws...<br /><br />Glory be ...<br /><br />The sea withdraws... <br /><br /><b>V.</b> Pray for us, O blessed Anthony,<br /><b>R.</b> That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.<br /><br />Let us pray:<br />Let Thy Church, O God, be gladdened by the solemn commemoration of blessed Anthony Thy Confessor: that she may be evermore defended by Thy spiritual assistance and merit to possess everlasting joy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. <br /><br />*** <br /><br />I also had a coffee in a little bar/café whose only sign was a picture of an ice-cream and some large red letters proclaiming "YOGURT, CREEPS"<br /><br />It turned out to be an advert for frozen yogurt and CREPES.<br /><br />&nbsp;***<br /><br />Then I came across about a dozen cardinals, all in red, hanging around waiting for something to happen in the entrance of the <span class="st">Museo Nazionale di Palazzo di Venezia</span>. They looked very cheerful. There was a colourful Swiss guard too, sitting down, with his legs stretched out, having a rest. I wondered what the guard was doing outside of Vatican territory, in full dress uniform. I guess he was guarding the cardinals; although I've never seen a Swiss guard having a little nap before.<br /><br />After my diatribe against Italian men yesterday, I am feeling a bit guilty. Perhaps the colourful renaissance heritage of Italians is something the Church really needs. Imagine if the papacy were based in Paris, London or Dublin ...&nbsp; If we are created in the image and likeness of God, then perhaps there is a kind of moral imperative for us to look nice and smart, and even colourful.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-91444805237769205712015-10-22T21:01:00.001+01:002015-10-22T21:03:10.546+01:00The italians may be like naughty boys, but their bishops know how to deal with them<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--SqN9VLBihw/Vik-EmWb1_I/AAAAAAAAXug/oeIpTZhomgA/s1600/policia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--SqN9VLBihw/Vik-EmWb1_I/AAAAAAAAXug/oeIpTZhomgA/s320/policia.jpg" width="237" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two dashing Italian policemen (with dainty little swords)<br />share an Ipod, in a break from hunting down the Mafia. <br />I snapped this when in was in Sicily last time.</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2tRcWXwLETk/Vik_N8fv0DI/AAAAAAAAXvE/ybbznR4mkJo/s1600/bishopSICILY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Interesting how the Italian bishops come out of this synod as holding the line on Christian morality.<br /><br />There is a sense in which the Italians know so much about sin that they have no illusions about it.<br /><br />There are about six different kinds of policemen here (perhaps more), all with different, super-stylish, uniforms. There is even a special police force, with guns, for tax evasion. There is no smoke without fire: Italians obviously need an awful lot of policing ...<br /><br />The Termini railway station is full of beautiful photos of women in revealing underwear. (Even if the women in the streets are less elegant than their Parisian counterparts, I feel.)<br /><br />But then there are Italian men.<i> La bella figura</i> runs deep here. A good portion of Italian men must lose ten hours out of their working week on looking after their appearance; Rome is full of posters, on every street corner, listing the reasons to oppose gay marriage and adoption (they are the single most common poster in Rome this week), and yet when I went to buy shoe polish today, I noticed they were promoting a special nourishing make-up product for men's pectoral and abdominal muscles. For whose benefit, one wonders? Is this to please their wives?<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2tRcWXwLETk/Vik_N8fv0DI/AAAAAAAAXvE/ybbznR4mkJo/s320/bishopSICILY.jpg" width="214" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, with a proper Italian bishop. </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Married businessmen quite often have a 'little friend'; if, that is, they don't have a mistress, or so I am told. All the men have handbags ... and the policemen just look too swish to actually chase criminals.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Walking back from the Vatican today I saw, for the first time in my life, an amazing machine, lit up like a Christmas tree, with a dozen - yes a dozen - different condom varieties on offer. This was on the Roman equivalent of Oxford street or the Champs Elysés. <br /><br />Italians are sensual people. Which means the food is great. But the sex can be morally problematic. And they probably only fiddle their tax to pay for better wine and dinners or prettier mistresses. But it also means they have enough experience of the joys and sorrow of the human condition to be good arbiters about what we really ought to be doing.<br /><br />That's why they have so many policemen, and so many very conservative bishops.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-76287738036414513872015-10-22T20:24:00.000+01:002015-10-22T20:24:21.733+01:00In Rome, on business ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.libreriaeditricevaticana.va/content/libreriaeditricevaticana/it/novita-editoriali/enchiridion-della-famiglia-e-della-vita/_jcr_content/top-a-left/textimage/image.img.jpg/1412600292600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.libreriaeditricevaticana.va/content/libreriaeditricevaticana/it/novita-editoriali/enchiridion-della-famiglia-e-della-vita/_jcr_content/top-a-left/textimage/image.img.jpg/1412600292600.jpg" /></a></div>The Synod is ending here in Rome. Spoke to some African synod fathers today. Atmosphere upbeat, I feel; but that may be because it has stopped raining and the bishops are tired and just want to go to home.<br /><br />Popped into the Libreria Editrice Vaticana today. I see that the Pontifical Council for the Family brought out a whole list of very large books on the family, in Italian, in time for the synod. You can't get them in English. They include a 3546-page Enchiridion of magisteri<span class="text_exposed_show">al teaching on family and life issues from 1439 to the Present Day. <a href="http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.libreriaeditricevaticana.va%2Fcontent%2Flibreriaeditricevaticana%2Fit%2Fnovita-editoriali%2Fenchiridion-della-famiglia-e-della-vita.html&amp;h=pAQGNg7OhAQHWaOiQYBeYCgDy7AS96K7Tr9Z4AQjwXaEyzg&amp;enc=AZNxirbq1VyjZFkuJ5jn2MF9X7i3yZh4YYGDHMKjTpP6M_G9z8TgYiLrV2h9uD1PwLkIQCzuWL-IZc5CNaWB8ecMheyXXBs9si6QIwQatToUEcm0fpd-Za3Kl0x_XC1cIRma6TPCc6dSnI7FqzZYFvxvSM523ONlelNHhtbowSZl7vhGG-Mcyohy-yn3e3cUiQ4&amp;s=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.libreriaeditricevaticana.va/…/enchiridion-della-…</a></span><br /><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> Which explains why the Italian bishops have been so incredibly well-informed during the Synod (it came out on the first day and I guess they have been able to skim through it during coffee breaks). It's all good stuff; good of the Pontifical Council for the Family to do all that work. One wonders how many copies have sold though ...</span><br /><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> Romans 1:26-32 anyone? Come to mind especially as the Cardinal from Mumbai made a very surprising intervention about the perceived need to adopt a less negative language about homosexuality...Very stern penalties are envisaged by St Paul for those who promote immorality... I wonder if the German bishops have been reading St Paul's Epistle to the Romans. It was (for other reasons) Luther's favourite ...</span><br /><br /><span class="text_exposed_show">Glad I am not a theologian. </span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-50491083743384941322015-10-12T10:28:00.000+01:002015-10-12T10:38:15.479+01:00When we know what we've got to do ...<div class="v gb"><i>I prayed, and understanding was given me; <br />I entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. <br />I esteemed her more than sceptres and thrones; <br />compared with her, I held riches as nothing.</i><br /><i>&nbsp;</i> <br />That was the first reading at Mass yesterday morning, and the Fathers at the Synod in Rome must have been moved by it. Just like the previous Sunday, when the Gospel contained Jesus' clear condemnation of adultery, this week's readings will certainly speak to the heart, but in a different way.</div><br />The Gospel yesterday, from St Mark, tells the tale of the devout young Jewish man who wants to know how to gain eternal life in Heaven. Jesus' answer is about respect for the moral law: the ten commandments. And then when the young man says that he follows them all, but still desires to serve God better, Jesus asks him to go a step further and give away all his wealth. <br /><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">St John Paul II used the same story, but in the version from St Matthew's Gospel, in his encyclical <i>Veritatis Splendor</i>. He uses the story to show how the Lord calls us to be morally good; but that also this desire to&nbsp; serve God flows from a place deep in our hearts. Deep in our being, we know the truth of the moral law, and we may even already have an idea of our particular vocation.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">In the story, the young man knows that God is asking him to do more even than to follow the commandments, and yet when he hears what that vocation is, he turns away sadly because he cannot bring himself to answer that call.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">The bishops at the Synod are like that young man; the Lord looks on them and loves them, as he did with the devout young Jew. And yet those bishops, like rest of us, have a good idea of what God is aksing them to do. We cannot hide from God; we cannot deceive ourselves for long as to his commandments. As St Paul writes to the Hebrews, in yesterday's epistle:</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">"The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double-edged sword but more finely: it can slip through the place where the soul is divided from the spirit, or joints from the marrow; it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts. No created thing can hide from him; everything is uncovered and open to the eyes of the one to whom we must give account of ourselves."</div><div class="v"></div><div class="v">Let's pray that those good men will search the Scriptures, and that the clear and beautiful teachings of Christ will be allowed to speak to the world. Just imagine a young man going to Christ today and asking what he needed to do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. wouldn't Christ address him "where he was at" but lead him to a better place? Christ should be a the starting point of the reflections at the Synod.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">When Paul VI and John Paul II made moral pronouncements about the way Catholics should live, <i>everyone knew about them. </i>We need a clear list of marching orders for the modern world, in the areas where ordinary Catholics can easily get it wrong. A priest friend of mine recently told me that members of his parish had undergone IVF and produced a series of test-tube babies, one of which was implanted in the mother's womb and subsequently presented for baptism, while the others were left in the freezer in the hospital, for a rainy day ... the priest discovered that the family had no idea that IVF presents a whole list of moral problems and is not permitted by the Church. I have had boys attend my school who were test tube babies, and their Catholic parents were similarly unaware of the issues. One acquaintance, outside the school, is going forward for the permanent diaconate, and I am not sure if he is properly aware of the moral issues surrounding his own children born by IVF, and indeed the ones who still remain in cold storage ...</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">Another priest-friend recently preached to his congregation about the Synod and told the people that the Church was not going to change her position on access to the sacraments for remarried divorcees. Two men who were in this situation and were regular Mass-goers came to see my friend and asked him if that meant they should not themselves have been receiving Communion for the last few years. When they heard the answer they were a little saddened, but have continued to attend Mass, but not to receive Communion. It is a fair bet than a great many Catholics have somehow not understood or heard about the teaching of the Church, or have a vague idea that the Church no longer has any teaching about such matters. </div><div class="v"></div><div class="v">There is also an incredible blindness about the internet. Many people spend more time on the internet than they do relating to those around them. Internet creates new communities, so that Facebook, for example, threatens the position of the family as the main pillar of society. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Perhaps we need guidance from the Pope.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">Then, internet pornography not only destroys the intimacy of marriage, but also makes it increasingly difficult for the next generation of married couples, who are already psychologically and spiritually compromised before marriage. Over time, it does tend to pervert its users who are in search of newer and different thrills; so that even quite young people can become hooked and perverted (not just turned into sex addicts, but also into homosexuals, paedophiles or men who feel the need to be violent and abusive to women in order to gain sexual pleasure). Over the years I have noticed that it also makes people irritable, unreliable, impatient ... It is one of the greatest threats to the family in our modern world. And yet, it could easily be stopped by governments. If governments refuse, then at least the Church should be helping families deal with the problem.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">There is also the problem of families who are divided for economic reasons. Social injustices often lead to situations where fathers work away from home for months on end in order to support the families they love. And yet such situations can lead to terrible strain on marriages, and to family break-up. The Church needs to come to the rescue of these people.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">Strangely, just about the time when intellectuals of all religions and none are beginning to see and appreciate the prophetic nature of Paul VI's letter <i>Humanae Vitae</i>, some senior churchmen seem to want to sweep it under the carpet. And with the suggestion that homosexual couples should be given unfettered access to the sacraments, there is the suggestion that the magic wand of individual conscience can somehow make the sex lives of such people 'ok' (specifically the mainstays of gay sex: sodomy, mutual and individual masturbation, regular use of hard pornography, etc, etc, quite literally <i>ad nauseam</i>). Where does that leave everyone else? So does that mean it's ok for mothers and fathers, and kids at school too? If so, what's wrong with contraception? Or indeed, with adultery ... Once the taboos come down, can we really hold out against paedophilia? Shouldn't we follow the example of several countries where the age of legal sexual activity just keeps going down and down (12 or 13 in some countries.) Again, all of this is a huge threat to the family.<br />The Church needs to speak, and act.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">There was a time when many good priests wondered if it might not do more harm than good to speak about sexuality. But now, we can see that many good people are being led to this sea of filth and are drowning in it. Clear teaching, lovingly expressed, and resolute pastoral action would be a lifeline from holy Mother Church. The odd thing is that the progressives are not really interested in 'teaching the truth with love' as St Francis de Sales did, but instead in changing the teaching to suit the depraved modern world. This is because they have perhaps forgotten what love really is: something that involves giving and sacrifice, <i>and not just taking.</i></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">A saddening truth is not so much the underlying problems have changed. Men have always been tempted to impurity. The devil knows that our creative faculty is one that is tied up in a special way with our relationship to God, so of course he wants to knock it off course. What has changed, as it does in every age, is perhaps the forms that the temptations take; and also the lack of confidence on the part of the Church at providing guidance and support, because of false notions of individual liberty (<i>the freedom to hang oneself is not freedom ...</i>)</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><i>And what about purity as a virtue</i>, rather than as an imposition? What about the truth that it is the pure of heart who can, according to the Lord Jesus, see God best? Isn' t this something great to aspire to, and to live out in our individual vocations, whatever they may be? What about the age-old teachings we used to hear from confessors that lack of purity leads to selfishness, to lack of charity, to hardness of heart, even to defective reasoning because of the inability to look up from one's own situation ... ?&nbsp;</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">What about the fate of the elderly? Isn't that one of the first things that comes to mind when Jesus says: "It is not good for man to be alone." In fact, friendship, comradeship and kindness are what make it relatively easy to lead a pure life. Loneliness and isolation are what make it difficult. In the past, old people were respected, listened to, loved ... Recently when I was having a heated debate with our local newsagent about the sale of pornographic magazines in his shop, he told me that his main customers were elderly people, and that boys were more interested in football and car magazines.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">But how is it possible that there should be Christians who are lonely? What does the Church have to say to those who are? We cannot say simply: "Sorry, you can just remain lonely and isolated, but you must also be pure." Lonely people need to be helped to wholeness. This is true of all those in difficult situations (the divorced; those with a homosexual orientation; the elderly, especially widows and widowers). Legal fixes will not help them. The solutions come from one heart to another: they need to be loved.</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">Doesn't it strike anyone as odd that the same Church that knows that it is custodian of the sacraments is now being cast in a new light as "the custodian of sex", poised to hand out this healing balm to all those desperate for it? We are hearing the message that easier "guilt-free" access to sex, especially for Catholics struggling with homosexuality, will solve all man's problems. It is a false Gospel, and was already denounced as one by St Paul, addressing the Corinthians. </div><div class="v"></div><div class="v"><br />So, what about a new <i>HUMANAE VITAE</i>, that sets out the Church's teaching on all these subjects in a new and compelling way (as the <i>Catechism of the Catholic Church</i> did so well) but also proposes radical pastoral action to reach out the lonely, the broken, the struggling and also to Catholic families who want to bring up the children in a wholesome and holy way, but need more support to do so?</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v">The central part of such a document could be<i> the family as the school of Christian love</i>; and how, in keeping with biblical traditions on the family, the Catholic family can and must have a transforming effect on society. For a true Catholic family is a wonder to behold, with the <i>wife like a fruitful vine in the heart of the home</i>, the <i>children like shoots of the olive, around the table</i>;<i> fine sons like a sheaf of arrows</i>, and a beautiful wife <i>who reaches her hand out to the poor</i> ...</div><div class="v"></div><div class="v">We know what we've got to do. The bishops know what we need to do. We just need to do it. And God, and the world, are waiting ...</div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="v"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-13051482819077686842015-10-09T16:49:00.002+01:002015-10-09T16:49:49.362+01:00Cautious optimism called for: Common ground and common sense at the synod.Having just read the reports of all the different languages groups for Day 5 of the Synod, this is my overall impression of what all the bishops are saying. It is good stuff, and, for a change, is not pointing the finger at the world; rather, encouraging the Church to do what is necessary in order to preach the authentic mesage of Christ.<br /><br />1. There should be less Eurocentrism. One can see that the bishops from outside Europe are staggered at the European bishops' myopic vision.<br />2. We need more teaching on the centrality of the family; and the Italian bishops underline that this should explicitly mention that it is about a MAN and a WOMAN.<br />3. A "clear magisterial intervention" is needed to clear up the confusion which has been cause by the synodal process. Although Cardinal Tagle has explained there will not necessarily be a post-synodal exhortation, it seeems that most bishops think one is necessary.<br />4. The Chuch needs to do more to support families who are doing well, thank God, living the Christian life, against a multitude of a challenges; in fact, the number of good Catholic marriages may well be increasing worldwide.<br />5. Avoid an overly negative view which seems blind to all the wonderful, faithful Catholic families, and all the signs of renewal.<br />6. There is a call for a condemnation of the modern THEORY OF GENDER.<br />7. The Church needs to speak in simple, direct and evangelical language; using the style of the Lord Jesus and St Paul.<br /><br />The German language group was surprisingly restrained, but most other groups were not afraid to be critical of the poor quality of the <i>Instrumentum Laboris</i>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-30234030658308623472015-10-03T22:07:00.001+01:002015-10-04T08:39:27.554+01:00Could this be the storm before the calm?"We can talk a lot about God, and in the end, do so without faith", said Cardinal Mueller a couple of weeks before last year’s Synod on the Family in Rome.&nbsp; And now, a year later, and another Synod about to happen, I am thinking it is the most sensible observation I've noted out of all the soundbites over the last twelve months on those subjects of divorce and homosexual relationships.<br /><br />And now a Monsignor from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has just planted a kind of philosophical bomb in the Synod Hall by calling a press conference to tell the world that he has a live-in boyfriend, and that all priests would if they could ...<br /><br />It is precisely the kind of happening that could discourage us all into a kind of paralysis or even indifference, at least towards any news or pronouncements from Rome. We know our Faith. Wouldn’t it be much easier if we just ignored the news from the Vatican?<br /><br />In a sense, this is a salutary truth. We do know our Faith. And we should just get on with the important, difficult but rewarding task of living it, and following our Saviour.<br /><br />But like every heresy, it is a truth mixed with error. And that is just what the devil wants. Another possible, and I think more likely outcome, is that the bishops who have been speaking in a reckless and unguarded way about faith and morals will now be a little scared and confused. Free exchanges in a closed theological debate amongst theological experts are all very well. It is even part of our tradition, but “careless talk costs lives” and many people (not just immaculately coiffed Monsignori in the Vatican) are jumping the gun. Luther lived to regret his injunction “Pecca fortiter : go, sin boldly!”... We now have a kind of parallel. Cardinal Kasper has opened a bit of a Pandora’s box that the Synod fathers are now almost to certain to close, with a sigh of relief. If and when that happens we will all be left saying something like this: these issues needed a public airing, despite all the fallout. Now we know where we stand, and where God would have us stand. <br /><br />How can these two men (Kasper and Mueller) come up with such different opinions when faced with the same pastoral realities in Germany? Could it be something to do with the fact that Mueller has actually spent a lot more time with ordinary Catholics and so knows something about the real challenges of Christian life for ordinary people? <br /><br />Mueller has 8 or 9 years experience in parishes, 16 as a theology professor and then ten as diocesan bishop, all after the Second Vatican Council. He was also a pupil of Gustavo Gutiérrez, &nbsp;one of the few liberation theologians to stay spiritually close to the poor and to their traditional popular piety and to maintain a traditional sacramental, ecclesial and eschatological view.&nbsp;Gutiérrez&nbsp;is a theologian who has stayed in touch with the people's faith in a way&nbsp;that many other left wing theologians have not. He and Mueller are still friends, which will no doubt surprise people who think of Mueller as a crusty, heartless bigot.<br /><br />As far as I can make out, Kasper spent just one year as a priest in a parish from 1958-59, then the next 31 years as an academic, before becoming Archbishop of Munich in 1989. He is a man of committees and conferences. Kasper experienced the whole Vatican II phenomenon of the 60s and 70s from inside an academic bubble, probably peopled with a higher than usual percentage of vociferous intellectual Catholics in 'irregular' situations. One supposes that his circle of intimates is composed mainly of liberal theologians and progressive bureaucrats inside the Church. &nbsp;Like Mueller, he is the protégé of a famous theologian: he was formerly assistant to Hans Kung, the famous progressive theologian who disputes many key Catholic spiritual and ethical teachings and who a year ago announced his intention to commit suicide (perhaps he is losing his nerve ... One hopes so). Kung, unlike&nbsp;Gutiérrez, is a theologian who has completely lost touch with the religion of the poor, if indeed he ever encountered it. His is a religion for cultured middle-class intellectuals. And they are a dying breed.<br /><br />A final thought: when I was a conservative-minded university student, over twenty years ago, in a Catholic chaplaincy awash with progressive ideas I went to a talk given by Fr Gustavo Guttiérez OP. When it came to the question-time I asked him more questions than all the other questioners put together. <br /><br />I remember asking him, in a superior tone, “but Father don’t you believe in eternal life?” His answer was<i> yes, but hasn’t eternal life already begun? Isn’t the Kingdom of God already present among us?</i><br /><br />The effect of his humble, thoughtful, respectful and wise responses was to give me two very strong impressions: here was a priest, a true priest. And also that here, somehow, in the midst of all sorts of theological questions which I was asking myself, I was in the presence of a saint. I knelt down afterwards and asked him to give me his blessing. And in a fatherly, priestly and kindly way, that is what he did.<br /><br />Guttiérez and Pope Francis are coming from a similar place. Perhaps Cardinal Mueller and the Holy Father, both men of the people, are closer than one might think. Whatever befall, The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? Pray, hope and don’t worry, as a good man once said.<br /><br />As I write this I am listening to the Beatles: <br /><br />“We can work it out and get it straight. Life is very short and there is no time for fussing and fighting, my friend. ...Try to see it my way. Only time will tell if I am right or wrong.”<br /><br />Good night, from France.<br /><br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-80568074003496879702015-02-19T14:48:00.001+00:002015-10-03T22:17:48.022+01:00Chavagnes, ten years on ..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jis590W8OFw/VOX3j6xLErI/AAAAAAAAIBM/cNYXWhaBH3I/s1600/schoolsketch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jis590W8OFw/VOX3j6xLErI/AAAAAAAAIBM/cNYXWhaBH3I/s1600/schoolsketch.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Beginnings of a memoir about Chavagnes and myself (work in progress):<br /><br /><a href="http://mcdermottsmiscellany.blogspot.fr/p/chavagnes-ten-years-on.html">http://mcdermottsmiscellany.blogspot.fr/p/chavagnes-ten-years-on.html</a><br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-73171172412209798052014-10-23T15:38:00.002+01:002014-10-23T16:23:30.689+01:00Sense and nonsense from Germany<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://catholic4lifeblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/cardinal-muller-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://catholic4lifeblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/cardinal-muller-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cardinal Mueller is a wise man, capable of surprising us.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">"We can talk a lot about God, and in the end, do so without faith", <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/catholicnews/2014/10/cardinal-mueller-do-not-remove-challenges-of-gospel/" target="_blank">said Cardinal Mueller </a>a couple of weeks before the recent Synod on the Family in Rome. It is the most sensible observation I've noted out of all the soundbites over the last month on the subjects of divorce and homosexual relationships.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Meanwhile Cardinal Kasper <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/kasper-synod-should-ignore-african-bishops-majority-favor-communion-for-div" target="_blank">seeks to sideline the bishops of Africa</a> in favour of his own personal progressive agenda. He wants to fudge the Church's teaching on a whole raft of issues. </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">How can these two men come up with such different opinions when faced with the same pastoral realities in Germany? Could it be something to do with the fact that Mueller has actually spent a lot more time with ordinary Catholics and so knows something about the real challenges of Christian life for ordinary people?&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Mueller has 8 or 9 years experience in parishes, 16 as a theology professor and then ten as diocesan bishop, all after the Second Vatican Council. He was also a pupil of Gustavo Gutiérrez, &nbsp;one of the few liberation theologians to stay spiritually close to the poor and to their traditional popular piety and to maintain a traditional sacramental, ecclesial and eschatological view.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Gutiérrez&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">is a theologian who has stayed in touch with the people's faith in a way&nbsp;that many other left wing theologians have not. He and Mueller are still friends, which will no doubt surprise people who think of Mueller as a crusty, heartless bigot.</span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Kardinaal_III_Danneels_en_Kasper.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Kardinaal_III_Danneels_en_Kasper.JPG" height="320" width="185" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cardinals Kasper and Daneels</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">As far as I can make out, Kasper spent just one year as a priest in a parish from 1958-59, then the next 31 years as an academic, before becoming Archbishop of Munich in 1989. He is a man of committees and conferences. Kasper experienced the whole Vatican II phenomenon of the 60s and 70s from inside an academic bubble, probably peopled with a higher than usual percentage of vociferous intellectual Catholics in 'irregular' situations. One supposes that his circle of intimates is composed mainly of liberal theologians and progressive bureaucrats inside the Church. &nbsp;Like Mueller, he is the protégé of a famous theologian: he was formerly assistant to Hans Kung, the famous progressive theologian who disputes many key Catholic spiritual and ethical teachings and who recently announced his intention to commit suicide over the coming months. Kung, unlike&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Gutiérrez, is a theologian who has completely lost touch with the religion of the poor. His is a religion for middle-class intellectuals.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">And the German context is one of an institutional structure that is too wealthy for its own good, in the context of a Church that has become completely bourgeois and really no longer speaks to the poor and marginalised. That is perhaps why those dismissive remarks about Africans slipped out so easily.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">All the common sense is coming from outside Europe: whether it is from the <a href="http://youtu.be/ngGCZ-eVl-A" target="_blank">Phillipines</a>, from <a href="http://youtu.be/LlLqQJE9G_8" target="_blank">Australia</a>, the <a href="http://youtu.be/OXk2RrC0H-A?list=UUDfNrxA5dMp0co1siQOLrjg" target="_blank">States</a> or <a href="http://youtu.be/U12-JT_pwKI" target="_blank">Africa</a>. Time for the Europeans to take a back seat and listen to these fresher voices.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><i>Honestly, nothing has really changed on the theme of sexuality since the Early Church. </i>Divorce was an enormous pastoral issue then. Lots of men were having sex with other men and with boys in the Greek world in which Christianity took root. Abortion was rife. Contraception and early versions of the morning after pill had already been invented at the time of Christ. If anything, pagans were often more sexually profligate than modern post-christians. &nbsp;</span></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">The big change in our day has been internet pornography; and perhaps also the fact that contraception has been made simpler and more effective. Pornography and the sexual license springing from contraception have had a big effect on families, on psychology, on the moral and spiritual lives of individuals. &nbsp;But aside from that, little has really changed about human nature. We are still, most of us, like Abbé Prévost and his <i>Manon</i>, a contradictory mixture of beauty and ugliness.&nbsp;</span></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">People continue to be deeply motivated by their sexual urges and their need for companionship. And they feel at the same time a call to heroism and truth. And the parodox of these competing forces shakes us all up. The sexual feelings of modern men, as with their forefathers, &nbsp;are still a source of difficulty and shame when they clash with our moral obligations, as they so often do. People have struggled with these crosses for thousands of years.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">So, if divorce and homosexuality were on the agenda in the first century, what's wrong with them being on the agenda in the 21st century? Nothing. It is quite normal that people should be asking these questions and looking for answers. The problem is that if Christ and His Church already addressed these issues with love and clarity back then, how is it that modern man needs a different answer from those given by Jesus and St Paul to the exact same questions all those years ago?</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">Hey, we all sin. We all long for Christ's embrace when we have fallen. He picks us up, sets us again on the right course and says 'Go and sin no more'.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">Of course the Christian life can be difficult for us. It is difficult for a married man who is tired of his wife and so takes a mistress as a way of saving his marriage; it is difficult for his wife too, no doubt, and difficult for the mistress ... &nbsp;it is difficult for a lonely homosexual who cannot cope with his solitude; it is difficult for the beautiful young woman whose husband is seriously disabled after an accident and who weeps every night because she just wants to be held by a man. &nbsp;And what about the man who, by no choice he ever made, seems only to desire intimacy with children and not with adults? What about the bisexual man who finds himself in love with a beautiful woman and also with his best male friend and who wishes he didn't have to chose between those two loves? (Have you never stopped to wonder why the politicans make so much fuss promoting gay marriage and yet propose nothing similar for bisexuals, who are probably much more numerous?) There are many categories of people who are faced with a difficult clash between their sexual urges, their thirst for intimacy and affirmation and then the demands of morality.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">It is all a mess. And it always has been . At least, ever since Adam and Eve. Ancient Jews, Egyptians, Romans and Greeks faced the same problems. And Christ and his apostles gave answers to people with problem situations such as I describe. These situations are <i>not something new.</i></span></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">Christ is the answer to these problems, <b>not </b>the Church. The Church can bring Christ's light and love, but cannot replace them with her own pronouncements. And this is the mistake that a lot of professional church people can easily make. Cheap talk and dishonest intellectual or legal 'fixes' from the Institution are not the answer. The touch of Christ, the look of Christ, the love of Christ. That is where the answer is. And in fact the Church cannot vote or define the love of God into or out of existence in general or in specific cases. If God wants to love us then He will, whatever the Church may say. And God does love us all, especially the hopeless sinners.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">On behalf of sinners, let me say thank-you to God for His unconditional love. &nbsp;If the Holy Father wants to know what I'd like out of his Synod on the Family, I'd say this: clarity, truth and guidance for living. And also, some exhortation to governments and to secular society on how to support the family at this difficult time. As for acceptance and love, anyone who wants that can get it from the Lord without the need for a committee vote. &nbsp;As Cardinal Mueller so cleverly put it:&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">"We can talk a lot about God, and in the end, do so without faith". Let's not fall into that trap. &nbsp;As for what to tell the sinners, <i>just tell them the truth.</i> Even when it hurts. The best part of that truth is that we sinners are loved by Almighty God.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-85715329965870251162014-08-22T21:08:00.001+01:002014-08-22T21:08:24.585+01:00Blasts from the pastI found a few old newsletters from the school here at Chavagnes. They go back to 2006, so some of the boys featured are now in their mid twenties with children of their own already. You can look at these old editions here: <a href="http://issuu.com/ferdimcdermott">http://issuu.com/ferdimcdermott</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-49136077499702754752014-05-06T17:04:00.002+01:002014-05-06T17:04:13.691+01:00Single ticketOur friends, I hear, are those who know us well<br />And who, in spite of knowing, love us still.<br />It is a bitter course when all is known,<br />When still we love, without return, alone.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271278077913551782.post-28060275382909423902014-03-18T14:20:00.000+00:002014-03-18T14:20:01.119+00:00Seeing the Tapestry at Angers for a second time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8p4mBcaHON8/UyhUrnRc9pI/AAAAAAAAHto/LTlqlvt2Wh8/s1600/saint-jean-foule-elus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8p4mBcaHON8/UyhUrnRc9pI/AAAAAAAAHto/LTlqlvt2Wh8/s1600/saint-jean-foule-elus.jpg" height="316" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kpP-qAXrbpM/UyhVRqr_lQI/AAAAAAAAHtw/CRhrej6eIgI/s1600/Sommeil-des-Justes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kpP-qAXrbpM/UyhVRqr_lQI/AAAAAAAAHtw/CRhrej6eIgI/s1600/Sommeil-des-Justes.jpg" height="207" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><strong>On seeing the Peaceful face of God and the Sleep of the Just<br />In the Tapestry of the Apocalypse at the Castle of Angers</strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Was weighed down, <br />Weary, with worldly woe<br />When wondrous<br />Warp and weft<br />Won me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Oh to sleep so,<br />Sweetest, sainted<br />Sleep!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then to awake in<br />Soaring, searing sunlight<br />Of pure, perfected love.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Golden Jerusalem!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">With the love of friends<br />All around,<br />And beautiful,<br />Beloved<br />Lord Christ <br />Woven into <br />Everything,<br />And forever<br />Before my eyes, <br />Blessing me<br />In bliss.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">March 2014&nbsp;</div><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes International College in France.
Chavagnes is a private Catholic boarding school for boys.</div>Ferdi McDermotthttps://plus.google.com/115825852590170246760noreply@blogger.com0